Amazing....simply amazing.

Reading this entire thread has me scratching my head.

Yes, the rule book has some issues......one of which is NOT "If you have more than "X" % DQ's in a match, it's poorly designed". Trust me, we agonize over every action that needs to be taken on a stage and determine that all levels of shooters should be able to perform the tasks at hand.

180 degree rule vs muzzle safe point? Silliness. I say that 180 rule is just as subjective a call because I've seen it.

Missing a cover call? Another silly thing. 350 shooters times 16 stages with 3 cover calls per stage? (arbitrary #) Would that be 16,000 cover calls? Koski and I discussed SO fatigue on the last day of a 3 day match. Give me a break people. If you want it 1000%, 1000% of the time, go shoot the game with fault lines. I know I've NEVER seen a RO over there miss a foot slightly outside of a fault line.

Setting up a major sanctioned match for 350 shooters is no easy proposition. Frank has done this for years and years. He consults with some of the best people in the business. His set up crews work for 3 weeks prior to a Carolina Cup or Nationals. They also critique each stage the best they can as they set up. Not only do they look for safety issues, but also for places where people might be able to cheat. Frank also has Range Masers look at muzzle safe points, possible problems that might have to do with safety issues, poorly placed targets in relation to berms, etc, etc, ad nauseum. I would say that even after running 50 SOs through the stages gives us another look at things. Sometimes everyone gets so deep into it all that we might miss a muzzle flag placement. (swing stage example) That's when a Safety Officer needs to make a call, and perhaps add a flag here or there. I'd be willing to bet the person at the swing stage would have broken the muzzle safe point whether it was marked or not.

I know Frank contacts the best SO's in the country he can to get them to come volunteer their time and spend hard earned vacation to WORK their ASSES off. Every last one of them is human. Every last stage they work is designed and scrutinized by humans. And every shooter that shoots each stage is HUMAN, capable of melting down when the timer goes beep.

If anyone here thinks they can do a better job than Frank has at the last three S&W Indoor Nats, this year's Nats, or the Carolina Cup for the last 12 years, go ahead and step right up and show your prowess. (might I also mention other Match Directors that put on sanctioned matches?) I for one would LOVE to come see how you do. We also have a few people that will pick your match apart limb by limb. I'd be glad to let them know where you're running YOUR next sanctioned match.





David